In the late 90s, I was mainly listening to rock, metal, and alternative. Pop was not my thing as it was all mostly Disney friendly, choreographed, over-produced, no instruments in sight, nonsense. “Boy bands” were everywhere and I was annoyed that this was the label when again, no instruments in sight. But I can’t deny that they had millions of fans that they would entertain over the years. And isn’t that all that matters?
I say this because on 11/23/24 I found myself at Foxwoods at a Bell Biv Devoe concert, with 98° (that’s 98 Degrees) as the opener. Of all the “Boy Bands” in the 90s, can we agree that these guys were the lamest and least popular of the ones that made it big?
The only thing I really knew about these dudes going into the show is that Nick Lachey was in the group, and as far as I was concerned, he is famous because he’s the dude who married Jessica Simpson and had a hit reality TV show with her. He’s a TV star, not a singer in my book. But a show is a show, so let’s check it out.
They opened with some song that I assume was called 98 Degrees since they said a hundred times, but I could definitely be wrong. It seemed like it was a bit of a medley and they may have worked in some Finesse by Bruno Mars. A couple other songs were slipped in, as well as a ton of super lame choreography. Their “dancing” was definitely age appropriate. I felt like this is what 4 middle aged dads would come up with if they had do some kind of performance at their kids’ school and only had a week or two to practice. This made it comical, though I’m not sure if that’s what they were going for.
They decided to a bunch of “Diva” songs and did short versions of Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, and Adele (the Adele cover wasn’t good). They of course did their big song, that I’m sure has been played at probably too many weddings over the years, I Do. Then they did their “breakout hit” as they put it (that I’d never heard in my life) Invisible Man. They talked about the 90s and when MTV was still alive and showing videos and decided to do a bunch of songs (shortened versions) from that era:
- Britney’s Oops…I Did It Again
- Ricky Martin’s Livin la Vida Loca
- Offspring’s Pretty Fly for a White Guy
- Sisqo’s Thong Song
- *NSYNC’s Tearing Up My Heart
- Destiny Child’s Say My Name
They did the one song of theirs I knew because it’s played at grocery stores everywhere Because of You. But the show wasn’t over. They came back out for an encore but didn’t even use their own song. It was back to *NSYNC to close with Larger Than Life and then their own (I think) Give Me Just One Night (Una Noches). If I messed up any song orders, forgive me. The lame dancing and the pre-recorded music made me feel like I was watched a cruise ship or Caribbean resort performance. But somehow they’ve sold 15 million records so what do I know. Definitely 90s nostalgia and I can see the appeal for the pop fans of that era.
Lame dancing sample:
The stage was broken down a bit to get ready for Bell Biv Devoe, aka BBD. Once done, DJ Shakim opened their site hyping up the crowd with hip hop hits from the 80s and 90s doing his own live remixes as a real DJ does. It was loud and fun and got the crowd on their feet.
I don’t want to offend any of the hard core BBD fans with my lack of knowledge of their history. Did I own their “Poison” album? You bet I did! Still do. But that’s as far as my knowledge goes. I am not super familiar with all the other tie-ins they have with New Edition, Public Enemy, and the many other artists they’ve worked with and influenced over the years. But, seeing as they are from Boston and we were only a couple hours away, there were many fans there who definitely knew their whole catalog. Big nostalgia vibe.
They came out on the stage wearing big white coats with illuminated lettering on their back to of course spell out “BBD.” Did I know the song they opened with? Not really. But they said “BBD” a bunch of times and it was energetic and pretty awesome. It was possibly B.B.D. (Thought it was Me) but I may be wrong so call me out if so. They threw in some newer stuff during the night and they also did some New Edition. At one point they had an audience member try to sing the first verse to what I believe was Mr Telephone Man. First person blew it so they passed the mic to another dude who delivered.
One of the highlights of course was when they performed Do Me. You know you know it! Even Weird Al covered this song during one of his polka medleys back in the day. “The time was six o’clock on the Swatch watch.” Classic!
There was a lot of talking throughout the night reminiscing and doing long intros of the members. They had 4 dancers with them adding lots of energy to the stage. There were plenty of lights and fog machines used as well. They had a great drummer with them keeping the tempo along with the DJ so that the music had a live feel. They put on a solid show. And why wouldn’t they? At this point they are 40 year veterans of the stage.
They ended their set with Poison of course. And while they have always stated to “Never trust a big butt and a smile” they invited a large crowd of women up on the stage about 1/2 way through the song to come dance for this one. Lots of smiles and lots of big, well you know. It was fitting.
And that wrapped up the show. As the headliner, there was no encore. I found it odd that the opener had an encore at all. I’m not sure I had ever seen that before. The two groups if you ask me are two totally different genres and audiences, but they’re touring together and show mutual respect for each other. I was curious to see how much $ these dudes have made. What I found was Yahoo Finance does put these 2 groups on the same list when ranking the financial success of “Boy Bands.” That threw me off a bit. So are they the same genre? But they also have the Beetles on that same list so I guess I just don’t know anymore.
Decent show. The bass during BBD’s set was intense, but once again my earplugs saved me. Way back in the day, wearing ear plugs wasn’t “cool.” But I prefer to keep my hearing intact. I took a lot of abuse to the ole ear drums before wising up several years back. But I also got sick of the squishy foam ear plugs that muffle everything. These things are great.
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